scandalous grace, radical discipleship, cross-centered theology, Christian spirituality, the mission of the church in this world and whatever else on the same wave length running around the brain of a hopeful Protestant.

When God Hides

O Lord, why do you stand so far away?
Why do you hide when I am in trouble? ~Psalm 10:1, NLT

My heart is heavy tonight and I sensed the need to return to writing. Not only have I been feeling overwhelmed of late with my own problems and hurdles beyond my control, but today I received some dire news concerning a dear friend and fellow writer in much more dire straits (and a much better writer than I)–who was recently given 6-12 months to live and had just finished his first book, with many more projects certainly on the horizon.

Yesterday he gave up on chemo, it wasn’t helping any longer, guessing it was only going to kill him quicker. He and his family are now preparing for his passing. Without a miracle, it’s a matter of time, and very little. He’s in his mid-fifties and was in the prime of his life as far as I could tell, before this. His initial diagnosis was less than 4 months ago. Michael Spencer (aka imonk) has been God’s instrument to speak to me the last couple years in ways I can’t begin to list.

There’s an account of Jesus healing a blind man that’s caught my attention the last few years…

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”

“It was not because of his sins or his parents sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned to us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work. But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing! ~John 9:1-7, NLT

Notice that Jesus never gave the concrete answer that cut the mustard for inquiring minds that had to know, he merely answered, “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”

God doesn’t heal every time you know, all of our bodies will give out and return to dust one day, that is, if our life isn’t cut shorter by some calamity.

For years I thought it important that I had the answer to every question that seemed like a life or death issue at the time… until life turned upside down for me. It wasn’t until I experienced real loss and brokenness that I began to see that God doesn’t answer all of our questions with a yes, a no, or even a maybe. At times he is curiously silent. He doesn’t tend to email us a five point bulletin when we are broadsided, our car smashed up, as we are rushed off to the intensive care unit with our skull cracked open and our face mangled beyond recognition.

No, he doesn’t do that. Rather, to our surprise, he gives us himself. If you don’t believe me, read the book of Job.

Life really can turn on a dime, even when we do love Jesus.

First, it was a highly sought after position in youth ministry that fell through several years ago now, it was probably an idol for me, but it stung nonetheless. I couldn’t quite figure out why God would let something so important to me end up falling to pieces. Either way, I was in my mid-twenties with a tremendous wife by my side and two beautiful-healthy young daughters to support. A decade later it was the loss of what I considered at the time to be the best job I ever landed, and for the life of me couldn’t quite figure out why I was let go when I was such a good employee and was doing everything asked of me and then some. Days after the shocking news, I came down with a sickness that took the doctors nearly a year to find and by the time they did I was fearing for my life, wondering if I were already on death’s doorstep. Where was God? He’d let me lose my well-paying job that I enjoyed so much, and then, as if it were nothing, he allowed me to get sick?

In each of these instances my immediate reaction was “Why is this happening?” …I could have named several solid reasons a bridge should have collapsed on me every time I went under one but I still wanted to know why? Maybe it wasn’t because I was such a bad person (truth be told, I’m a actually an undeserving wretch), because I certainly had known of friends who much more resembled a choir boy than a wild child like myself—friends who’d lived through much worse tragedies than I.

But those adversities weren’t the end for me. Not even a year after recovering from my illness I was served with the worse news of my life; my wife of sixteen years was divorcing me, something I certainly deserved. But I still wanted to know why? Never had I loved, cherished or trusted her more, and yet, she pulled the trigger at a time when I believed in her more than I had any other person in my entire lifetime.

As if that weren’t enough, I moved back to Nashville a few years ago with no driver’s licence only to be closer to my three kids and ended up nearly getting running over by a runaway car while walking down the sidewalk in the early afternoon on my way home from work minding my own business… as it turned out, I got to see two of my three wonderful children the last day there only to say a sad and brief good-bye.

It’s been through adversities I couldn’t understand that I’ve learned profound lessons about the character of God. To this very day I still haven’t gotten to the why when it comes to some of my not so happy moments in life, and even though I’d like to say I never ask anymore, the thought still crosses my mind from time to time.

Now, as mentioned, I have been anything but an angel as much as I’d like to say I am one, and I don’t figure God owes me an answer, but I still wonder what happened and where did I go wrong, or where did I not go right? Even yet, what bigger problems was God responding to in the hour of my crisis’? …it sure seemed as if he were anywhere but with me. I’ve often said that God moves after midnight on our clocks, but what about when he doesn’t move after the lights have went dim and everyone has gone home?

Through these events I have discovered that, although I don’t have the answers, I can learn to accept that. What I can’t figure out nudges me one more step towards trusting God. It’s now okay for me to say “I’m not quite sure why things turned out the way I never planned they would.” There’s nothing intrinsically sinful about asking these questions, but there comes a day in all of our lives when we need to be still and know that God remains God even in those instances we never found the missing piece to our puzzle.

He can be trusted when we aren’t sure about much else.

We know that God works all things to the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), but that doesn’t mean we’ll have all the answers when disaster strikes. There are tragedies we witness and even are prey to which we can’t say with a straight face and mean it, “Well, God must have better”… tell that to a young husband who loses his bride to cancer a year after their wedding or Haitian believers who lost a 5-year-old in the recent horrific earthquake. Some things are so terrible that they require a simple “I don’t know.” There are deaths, divorces, diseases and devastation that we can’t wrap our finite minds around and package up nice and tidy, try as we may.

All we know for sure is that God is love and that he reigns eternal, and that the hidden things of God are not for us to know, today anyways.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ~1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV

What have I learned through all of my questioning?

When it seems God is hiding, its then that he is actually closest.

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8 Responses

Its encouraging to hear your story. God’s love never fails even if we run away His love comes finding us back again in His arms. I believe God is always present anytime we need its just sometimes we do not acknowledge Him in our decision, He is always there to guide us. We can’t blame God every time there’s something wrong that happens in our lives because HE IS A GOOD GOD. HE ONLY WANTS WHAT’S BEST FOR US. Isaiah 47:17

thanks for stopping by and for your respectful comments even if you disagree Robert. All I can say is that I have 3 great kids, and I love them dearly. As a father, there are things I could stop maybe that I think may be harmful to them, I could have tried to keep them locked up in the house as small children away from the world and from scrapes on their knees trying to ride a bike. But I didn’t, mostly because they are free beings and I wanted them to experience making their own choices and to know what it is to live life. They get hurt, and like me, sometimes make bad choices. We live in a fallen world, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice. There is evil. However, it was us, man and woman, who sinned… God allowed it for sure and I don’t have all the answers as to why?

nullusextracruem, I have no doubt you love your children the utmost. But would you ever grant them a job, then take it away unexpectedly without explaining why? Would you provide them a spouse, and then have that spouse divorce them? Would you give them a terrible disease for a whole year, or even for the rest of their lives? Would you cause them to be a victim of a horrible crime, or have them killed in an awful manner? If you saw them about to come to harm, would you stand idly by?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding “no”. Why? Because you are a loving parent. Yet the answers to these questions would be a “yes” if we’re talking about the Christian’s god. And yet they call him “all-loving.” Something does not seem right.

May you be able to resolve the tension between your beliefs and reality.

I guess the difference for me is that I don’t believe God has stood idly by. I wouldn’t have life if he hand’t have given me air, no flowers to smell if he hadn’t have created them and water to make them grow, and no food to eat had he not provided the endless hills it grows on. I thank God “most” mornings (not “all”, and that’s not a reflection on him but on me) I get up for another day, instead of blaming him when I stub my toe on the bedpost. Call me nuts, if you are going to blame God for the bad, it only makes sense to me (and common sense), that you have to credit him for the good as well.

You are obviously free to believe what you like as I am. As you mention, I love my kids, but certainly not to the utmost cause my love is flawed, but just because I love them doesn’t mean I’d never let them experience pain or sorrow or grief or loss… for it’s in these things that we learn what it is to share in the sufferings of Christ. Life isn’t the bowl of cherries I thought it would be when I was 10 years old, but it doesn’t prove to me that God is not “all-loving” (your term and one scholars use). For me, I see how unlovable I am (at times I think more of myself than I ought)… and to trust in a God who loves someone who can be as unlovely as me is truly remarkable.

As I read your story I could see that even in your darkest hour that God has used your suffering for good. It is no coincidence that your writing is reaching those who need to hear it today. I can totally relate to what you have been though because our stories are so similar. It is encouraging to know that we are not alone and to see how God is working in the lives of other believers. It is the times when I lay down my own pride and understand that acceptance is not giving in but letting go of the power that the past has over me that I am truly able to connect with God and feel his presence. It is a struggle to get out of my own way but it is comforting to know God is waiting for the chance to meet with me again.